Engineering of the glycerol decomposition pathway and cofactor regulation in an industrial yeast improves ethanol production
Journal article, 2013

Glycerol is a major by-product of industrial ethanol production and its formation consumes up to 4 % of the sugar substrate. This study modified the glycerol decomposition pathway of an industrial strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae to optimize the consumption of substrate and yield of ethanol. This study is the first to couple glycerol degradation with ethanol formation, to the best of our knowledge. The recombinant strain overexpressing GCY1 and DAK1, encoding glycerol dehydrogenase and dihydroxyacetone kinase, respectively, in glycerol degradation pathway, exhibited a moderate increase in ethanol yield (2.9 %) and decrease in glycerol yield (24.9 %) compared to the wild type with the initial glucose concentration of 15 % under anaerobic conditions. However, when the mhpF gene, encoding acetylating NAD(+)-dependent acetaldehyde dehydrogenase from Escherichia coli, was co-expressed in the aforementioned recombinant strain, a further increase in ethanol yield by 5.5 % and decrease in glycerol yield by 48 % were observed for the resultant recombinant strain GDMS1 when acetic acid was added into the medium prior to inoculation compared to the wild type. The process outlined in this study which enhances glycerol consumption and cofactor regulation in an industrial yeast is a promising metabolic engineering strategy to increase ethanol production by reducing the formation of glycerol.

saccharomyces-cerevisiae

glucose

Ethanol production

metabolism

nadh kinase

cultures

Cofactor NADH

Glycerol

Industrial yeast

Recombinant strain

Author

L. Zhang

Jiangnan University

Y. Tang

Jiangnan University

Zhongpeng Guo

Chalmers, Chemical and Biological Engineering, Industrial biotechnology

G. Y. Shi

Jiangnan University

Journal of Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology

1367-5435 (ISSN) 1476-5535 (eISSN)

Vol. 40 10 1153-1160

Subject Categories

Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

DOI

10.1007/s10295-013-1311-5

More information

Created

10/8/2017